Luring the Latinos

The other day we published a column by Charles Krauthammer, one of many Republican voices calling for a more moderate vision of immigration (even illegal immigration). Here’s a dissenting view by Victor Davis Hanson.

Krauthammer writes:

They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).

The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.

I’ve always been of the “enforcement first” school, with the subsequent promise of legalizati0n. I still think it’s the better policy. But many Hispanics fear that there will be nothing beyond enforcement. So, promise amnesty right up front. Secure the border with guaranteed legalization to follow on the day the four border-state governors affirm that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle.

Imagine Marco Rubio advancing such a policy on the road to 2016. It would transform the landscape. He’d win the Hispanic vote. Yes, win it. A problem fixable with a single policy initiative is not structural. It is solvable.

OK, well worth a thought. But there’s a lot of diversity contained in the term “Hispanic.” Having lived in Colorado for a few years, I encountered everything from recent illegal immigrants to folks whose families had been in the United States since before it was the United States. They also have widely varying ethnicities and cultures. Politically, culturally, ethnically, people whose families originated from Cuba, Argentina and Mexico have no more in common than immigrant groups from different parts of Europe or Asia had a century ago.

It therefore strikes me as a little naive, even insulting, for Republicans to assume that there’s common cause among Hispanics. And if the GOP panders to what its brain trust thinks is the Hispanic perspective, many of the 30 percent who actually voted for Mitt Romney on Nov. 6 will look elsewhere for political representation. The result likely will be a wash.

Here’s Hanson’s take:

In truth, the vast majority of Latinos who vote overwhelmingly Democratic is made up of poorer immigrants from Central America and Mexico rather than Marco Rubio–like second-generation Cuban-Americans. De facto amnesty, generous entitlements, vast increases in public expenditures and hiring, and more taxes on the wealthy are understandably widely supported by both the Latino leadership and rank-and-file. Public employment is increasingly more attractive and more subject to affirmative action than the private sector, and, quite logically, its expansion is seen by poorer Latinos as a natural pathway into the middle class. …

Pundits can rail about supposedly naïve, out-of-touch Republicans who talked of self-deportation and thereby lost the Latino vote; but one just as easily might have castigated them for decrying out-of-control entitlements and food stamps, predicating legal immigration on education and skills, or criticizing unworkable and discriminatory affirmative-action policies, since these positions are also politicized as anti-Latino dog whistles.

Two words: ground game. And two more: clear articulation. Republican operatives didn’t reach into neighborhoods where Hispanics live, and they didn’t offer a clear case for their vision, in English or Spanish or any other language. Bottom lien: They did the easy stuff — collecting money from rich people and buying advertising and such — and avoided the hard slog of actually rubbing shoulders and talking to small groups of people. The Democrats collected the money and bought the ad space, too, but they did were unafraid to dive into the trenches and get up close and personal with their target constituencies.

Dick Morris, who predicted a Romney landslide, is now joining the chorus advising Republicans on how they should handle their Hispanic problem. Look for it on the Web tomorrow.

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One thought on “Luring the Latinos”

It’s important to remember that illegal immigration has been supported and encouraged by business, and govt-at the behest of politicians, going back many years. Illegals have been encouraged in their quest for better lives here. While I feel we should have controlled the border all along, we cannot kick out 12-15 million people, which would require ‘police-state’ tactics if we were serious about it. America won’t do that.

There’s an argument that ultimately emigration/immigration can’t be stopped, or prevented from changing a country. Americans wouldn’t favor stopping it. It should be controlled though, as we’ve done with others moving here. We also need to decide if we want many millions of ‘guest workers’, or new citizens.

The position of- ‘Control the borders first, then we’ll talk’ is impractical now, as it was during Bush. There is no will among the powers that be to do that.